If you’re looking for an easy Christmas craft to do with kids, look no further! This fun project can also pull double duty as your holiday greeting card if you put the elf factory to work and pump out several dozen!

One afternoon last December while my 2 year old was napping, I decided to pull up my big mom pants and do an activity with the 7 year old instead of taking a nap myself.

You, too, can enjoy quality adult/child crafting goodness with just a few items that you probably have right in your home.

Start by measuring and marking 3 and 3/4 inches along the longer side of the card stock. Fold and trim off extra paper to make a 3 3/4 x 8.5 inches card (This fits a business size envelope exactly.)

Create a tree template so your child can trace out the trees by folding some card stock in half vertically and drawing half the tree along the folded line (about 3 inches tall and 1 inch wide). *Think three triangles stacked and overlapping on top of each other, small, medium, and large. Cut out the tree and unfold the paper to reveal the tree and the template (pictured above). You can fit three trees on a 8.5″ x 11″ sheet.

Once you have your template, your child can trace out as many trees as you need with a green crayon on the green paper and cut out. *For an added lesson on symmetry (fun), fold the green paper first, then apply folded template onto green paper, so your child can trace half the tree onto the paper, and cut out the tree just as you created the template.

Apply tree to the front of the card. We used a rolled piece of tape along the inner fold of the tree and only lightly pressed to give it a raised look

Next, create the little tree trunk by cutting a strip of brown paper about 1/2 an inch wide and just 4-5 inches long, and then let your child cut small pieces off of the strip and apply to the tree. *I did some tiny accordion folds into the brown paper for added interest/texture before cutting the strip.

Finally, let your child decorate the tree with “ornaments.” We used stickers, sequins, bits of shiny/glittery paper, and cut out pictures

We experimentally sprayed a few cards with adhesive spray all over the finished fronts and covered with iridescent glitter (snow!). Yes, it was a mess, and I’m glad we only did a few.

Simple, meaningful, fun, and no cost! (We had all the materials including stamps at home.)

Each card also included a family photo printed from our home printer and that was our holiday card for 2013. Now, what to do for 2014 … hmm.

A standard practice in selling residential homes is to remove personal photos from frames to give home shoppers the opportunity to imagine their own special moments in those frames. Often times, its easier to hide away the frames all together rather than deal with refilling them with something innocuous.

In our case, we found the blank frames showing the backing to fit in with the over all color scheme of the built in bookcase, but had the issue of appearing as if we had forgotten to fill the frames. The solution? Show case the backing in an intentional way by applying some string art! Before I get to the DIY, here is a little bit of background story behind our adventures in decoration…

Unfortunately, you can’t see the string detail in the silver frames and smaller black and white frame, but here is a nice over all look of the bookcase.

Every once in a while I unleash my inner craft freak and go full on beast mode for a project. I rarely have the luxury of time or energy to do it more than once or twice a year, so that’s a lot of built up craft freakery that must be spent. Just call me the joyful craft beast.

For 2013, we did a simplified Christmas, which, among other things, departed from the typical round of 30-40 handmade Xmas cards that I really love to make every year (I’m so serious: L. O. V. E. Don’t hate me because my cards are fancier than yours, Jinhee). So, given the unused craft battery, I felt a near superhuman strength going into Arden’s January 8th birthday party planning.

My surplus energy combined with the unique circumstances of this event (only having two guests, as an example) gave me an opportunity to indulge in craftiness above and beyond what I usually do for one of my parties. In other words, this is the exception, not the rule.

So, before I continue on, I have a disclaimer: this post is no celebration of the pinterest crazy beeshes out there, who love flawlessly executing pinned ideas to flaunt on Facebook. You know, who you are. Nor is this a condemnation for people who like to share pictorial evidence of a craft well done (if it is, I’m going down with you).

I have no desire to ignorantly fuel the dark side of online craft broadcasting. This is just a slice of life–an incident of my limited and particular abilities intersecting with a compulsive drive to create special spaces where people (little and big) can sincerely connect.